


Pride and Prejudice

by nugatory



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 18:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19978429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nugatory/pseuds/nugatory
Summary: Even after the outbreak, Aaron and Eric still have to deal with homophobia.





	Pride and Prejudice

“Oh, you’re the gays I’ve heard about,” a woman with curly brown hair smiled and held out her hand. “I’m Shelly Neudermeyer. That’s my husband, Bob, over there.”

“I’m Aaron, this is my partner Eric.”

Eric forced a smile at the backhanded remark of being ‘the gays,’ but said nothing beyond, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Neudermeyer."

“I’d love it if you boys would help me decorate my house sometime. It’s very quaint now, but I’ve seen that Queer Guy show before, I know how you gays have an eye for that kind of thing.”

Aaron put his hand on Eric’s back, rubbing it gently, knowing this woman’s well-meaning comments were about to be met with the redhead’s ire if she didn’t shut up soon. Thankfully, before she could offend either of them further, someone else caught her eye and she wandered off to mingle. 

“I’ll decorate her house, alright.” Eric muttered under his breath so that only Aaron could hear.

“Shh, babe,” Aaron laughed softly. “She didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Right, because ‘you gays’ isn’t derogatory at all.”

“Well, she could have called us faggots.”

“At least she’d actually be saying what she’s thinking.”

Aaron squeezed Eric’s shoulder reassuringly before breaking all physical contact, his eyes sweeping the room automatically to make sure no one was watching them. Having both been victims of homophobic taunts and attacks before, the couple rarely showed any kind of public displays of affection. It was simply easier…and safer…if they kept at least six inches between them. Even now, when the world was going to hell in a handbasket around them, they still felt the need to be cautious.

The Alexandria Safe-Zone neighborhood block party had almost everyone in the community at the Monroe’s temporary residence for mingling, food, drinks, and fun. Deanna Monroe, a congresswoman from Ohio, had taken a leadership role in the community while they waited (and waited, and waited) for the military to come and secure the safe zone. The longer time went by though, the clearer it became that the military wasn’t coming back. Deanna used these parties as a distraction to the families who had fled here for safety.

Eric and Aaron typically opted to sit the gatherings out, but Deanna had specifically requested their presence that night, which meant that they had to quietly endure the seemingly benign and well-meaning homophobic comments and veiled looks of detestation until it was safe for them to leave without offending the host. 

After nearly an hour, Deanna finally made her way to them. “Aaron, Eric, I’m so glad you two could make it tonight. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Both men listened as she talked about how they needed to start thinking about the future and the possibility that things weren’t going to return to normal anytime soon. Her husband, Reg, had come up with the idea to build a wall around the community in order to keep the people safe from looters, bandits, and other dangers that might be out there. 

“There might still be survivors out there, people who need somewhere safe to go. You two used to go on relief missions to Africa, you’ve handled dangerous situations in the past. I’d like for the two of you to go out and be our recruiters.” 

The men looked at each other for a moment in surprise before back at Deanna. She held her hands up before Aaron could reply.

“I don’t need an answer right now. We’ll need all the manpower we have to get the walls up that Reg’s planned. After that…we’ll talk.”

As she bid them goodnight and moved on to talk with others, Aaron and Eric decided to politely take their leave. Under the cover of darkness and the empty street, Aaron reached over to take Eric’s hand as they walked the short distance between the Monroe’s and their temporary house—a large Colonial style home that could have easily fit several families.

“Recruiters?” Eric said skeptically. 

“Could be fun,” Aaron smirked. “Besides, it’s not like we have anything better to do…unless you really do want to take Mrs. Neudermeyer up on her decorating off—“

Both men stopped abruptly as they reached the steps of their porch. On their front door, in large black painted letters, stood the word FAGS. Aaron stared at the word with some sadness as Eric looked around furiously. “I’d bet anything it was that troublemaker teenager of Jessie and Pete”

“You don’t know that, Eric.” Aaron sighed as he climbed the steps and went through the house to the garage to find something to remove the paint with.

Eric followed, hot on his heels. “Who else would it have been, Aaron?!”

Aaron turned and put his hands on Eric’s shoulders to calm the other man. “Even if it is him, he’s just a kid. I’ll talk to Deanna about it, but I’m not going to go over to their house and accuse him without any evidence. And neither should you.”

Eric sighed in resignation, his face set in a slight scowl. “All the shit happening in the world and being a faggot is still the worst thing possible to some people.”

“That’s their problem, not ours.” Aaron said, pressing a kiss to Eric’s forehead. “Come on, let’s go clean that shit off the door before it dries even more.”

As the two men scraped and scrubbed and wiped and washed at the letters, Aaron couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Eric gave him a curious look, and Aaron smirked in amusement. “I was thinking…I wish the culprit had done it in rainbow paint. I might have left it then.”

“We could really gay it up for them,” Eric mused, his anger finally dying down. “Dress up in drag, prance around like a couple of twinks, open all the windows and blare Cher on the stereo.”

Aaron laughed and leaned in closer to Eric. “Maybe we should stop trying to make them comfortable by hiding who we are in public.”

Eric leaned in with a smile, their lips inches apart. “Are you saying you want to hold my hand when other people are in the room with us? Scandalous!”

Chuckling, Aaron brushed his nose against Eric’s. “I want to do more than just hold your hand in public.”

“Unspeakable…” Eric teased before their lips met.

“What the hell…” Deanna’s voice sounded from the bottom step of the porch and the two men broke apart to look at her. She was staring at the still very visible word on their door, aghast. “Who did this?”

“We’re not sure,” Aaron said, before Eric could make his accusations. “Luckily, a little elbow grease and the right materials for the job, and it’s coming off…for the most part. We might need to paint over whatever we can’t remove, though.”

“I’m terribly sorry about this, I’ll look into the matter personally. I won’t tolerate this kind of hate in my community.”

“Thank you, Deanna.” Aaron said, graciously.

“Aaron and I talked about your request,” Eric spoke up, looking at Aaron to make sure they were in agreement on it. Aaron nodded softly. “We’d like to be Alexandria’s recruiters.”

Deanna smiled, obviously pleased. “That’s wonderful! I have a vision for what this place could become if things never do return to normal and we never get to go home again. You’re both good people, I trust your judgement on others.” She gestured to the door. “I’ll send Spencer over in the morning to repaint that. Right now, I think I’m going to finish my walk—always need to unwind after one of those things. Sometimes it feels a little too much like the schmoozing I did on Capitol Hill.”

Aaron laughed, knowing that feeling all too well from his time on the political circuit as a journalist, and Deanna winked at him before bidding them a good night. Aaron looked at Eric with a soft smile. “You sure you’re good with this?”

“Like you said, it’s either this or becoming the community’s interior decorator,” Eric smirked. “Besides, I get to be with you. How can that be a bad thing?” 

Aaron took the sandpaper and rag that Eric was holding and dropped them in the supplies bucket before gathering the other man into his arms and kissing him deeply. “What do you say we go to bed?”

“What about the door?”

“Let Spencer take care of it. We’ve done enough. I’d rather spend the rest of the night making love to you than scrubbing paint off the door.” When Eric only leered in response, Aaron took him by the hand and led him into the house, locking the door before he turned off the porch light.


End file.
